055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[AndrewS]

I have a problem with his statement as it's way too broad to accept. Such as what radar those warships use, what it's capabilities are, how much does it cost (we all know that it's cheaper for PRC to produce this numbers compared to all 'Western' nations where it's about the same) and the capital of all those questions - how many of them respective countries need and how much capable? How many countries are there in the entire world with warships possesing well documented ABM capabilities? Two (US and Japan?)!

By this stupid reasoning you can call European countries weak when comparing them to PLAN but in case they would unite (hypotheticaly) with all their resources and capabilities I'm 100% sure they would match PRC capabilities in no time.

I mean those kind of comparison to prove somebody's point (not only AndrewS's - I'm reading those here almost every day) comparing apples and oranges without spending a second for a critical thinking. The rest of his post is OK for me. Japan is struggling with building warships... France is struggling... What other fantastic news will I hear today?

Russia has it's problems, Indians are doing OK aside from few of their projects. Royal Navy is at fault that they can't get more money for their needs but they worked hard for that in past 30 years in my opinion.

I could go on and on but this at least should let you know what my opinion on this matter is. With threads 'oh look, if PLAN will expand exponentialy like this then in 100k years they will have the biggest fleet in the universe and they will be able to from PRC to US on the desck of the warships without even getting wet for a second!' like. When public opinion doesn't even have a glimpse into the original PLAN planning points...

I think most of those threads should go back to original, more news-like, technical-like aspects instead of fantasies. Or at least create a thread about that on Strategic Defence sub forum for that. Because I'm tired of going through 25 posts about how big PLAN will be in the year 2300 to find a single post about, for example, recent Type 055 developments. And probably I'm not the only one here who feels the same.

There simply isn't very much happening in the way of news because it is only 3-4 vessels being built every year.

And I do think pretty carefully about what I write, and I disagree with your analysis on the navies of Japan/Russia/UK/France/India.

Japan currently has 6 AEGIS destroyers and is adding 2 in the 2015-2020 plan. That's barely enough to keep the industrial base going.

The biggest surface warship that the Russian navy has commissioned in the past 15 years is a frigate.

The UK only has 6 air defence destroyers, the French have 2. In terms of ongoing construction overall, barely anything is happening. And yes, if Europe was united with a single navy, it would be a different story in terms of a single naval fleet with a viable industrial base. But that is not going to happen.

Then we've got India which really struggles to do naval shipbuilding correctly.

So please tell me I'm wrong when I say that nobody else compares to China and the USA in terms of naval shipbuilding.
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It's pretty obvious that China and the USA are in a different league, just from the military budget chart below. On an exchange rate basis, China spends 3x more on the military than Russia which is the next biggest spender. Plus costs in China are a lot lower than in the USA, but particularly for manpower intensive shipbuilding.

And you may be fed up of seeing what are middle-case projections for the Chinese fleet, there are enough people lurking who simply do not realise what China's capability and ambition means for the future.

I see this all the time as I'm in London.

 

[Iron Man]

It's not only beyond the "reach" of land based air power but rather a carrier provides a greater persistent presence of organic, mobile, naval air power at greater distances from land, compared to what land based air power can provide.

Any use of a carrier that involves operations within the range of land-based air assets is a less than ideal use of a carrier, and the closer you operate your carrier to your home shore, the more money and potential you are wasting.

The combat radius of a fighter from China's land air bases wanting to operate at say, 500km away from China's coast will have a significantly lower endurance at that range than a carrier that's sailing at that location 500km away from China's coast and able to deploy a fighter directly at that location.
Similarly, the endurance of a fighter from China's land air base wanting to operate at the same kind of endurance that a carrier sailing at that location 500km away from China's coast will not be able to attain a similar reach to that location 500km away as operating at that combat radius would reduce its endurance.

That's why I wrote endurance "and/or" combat radius, because I see the two as fundamentally connected depending on whether one's prioritizing endurance (at a given combat radius) or combat radius (at a given endurance).

Fine, but you're paying a steep price for this enhanced endurance/range at 500km from shore when the price could simply have been paid with more land-based fighters and less personnel and assets at risk. If a flight of land-based fighters can escort a sensor platform at a given distance from shore, it's invariably cheaper and more cost-effective to just do that than to build up an entire carrier industry so you can get more endurance/range from your CAP escorts. The cost/benefit calculation of a carrier would certainly not include "escorting a shore-based sensor platform with more endurance/range". This again would be a significantly less than optimal use of carriers.

Yes, the combat radius of J-11B and other flankers and J-20s and even J-10s in some configurations is quite impressive yes, but I do not think escorting an MPA is enough, optimally you would have the ability to patrol airspace independent of your escorted MPA and optimally to be able to contest or control a volume of airspace beyond which your vulnerable (even if escorted) MPA is patrolling.

But MPA/ISR escort/defence is of course just one rather specific example of what a carrierborne aviation can provide.

I see the value of carrierborne fixed wing aviation in being able to allow Chinese combat aviation to operate at greater distances from China's mainland fighter bases with greater associated endurance, to extend China's overall air defence, air strike, and air contesting capability much further beyond China's mainland than what only land based fighters can provide.

Nah, escorting an MPA is easy enough for land-based fighters. Using a carrier force to escort an MPA is just ludicrously surreal.

Actually I didn't contradict myself -- what I wrote in this part of my post is talking about their potential to respond to contingencies overall.

The purpose of my suggested peacetime deployment pattern would be so they could conduct to high intensity short duration surge operations at China's near seas, but I've never excluded the possibility as well as to have the capability to provide additional blue water carrier presence in a crisis, beyond the normal peacetime blue water single carrier deployment.
That said, over the last few pages, the issue of the overall flexibility of deployment for my proposed depoyment pattern has never really come up and has mostly been focused on their primary role in near seas surge operations. However, now that we've broached this topic I would like to clarify that my deployment pattern also leaves open the possibility to allow another carrier to deploy in blue water and support the other single blue water carrier as well for a period of time.

But during peacetime, the available 6 carrier fleet will only have 1 carrier continuously at sea in blue water while the other 5 are more or less at home.


Let's look at it this way... for a 6 carrier fleet:
My proposal is for peacetime to have 1 at sea/bluewater for extended continuous period, 5 at home. IMO, this allows them to either be able to surge at least 3 additional carriers for near seas operations during a regional contingency, OR in a blue water crisis, it allows them to surge at least 1 more carrier for blue water operations to support the carrier that is normally in blue water during peacetime.
The other idea is to for peacetime to have 2 at sea/bluewater/or near seas for extended continuous period, 4 at home. For this idea, I think they would only be able to surge 1-2 additional carriers for near seas operations during a regional contingency, OR in a blue water crisis they might be able to surge another 1 more carrier for blue water operations to support the 2 carriers which have already been at sea continuously during peacetime when the crisis occurred.

That's why I think it's a bit flawed to say my proposal is primarily for "home defense". Instead I think it's better described as a deployment pattern that allows for response to contingencies both at near seas and for blue water, but it is a deployment pattern which favours the ability to respond to a near seas contingency a bit more than the ability to respond to a blue water contingency.

You have yet to demonstrate that your never-heard-of-before ultra-short-term carrier deployment patterns can actually work in reality or buys you the flexibility that you claim.

I think his comparisons by mentioning Australia and Europe is because Australia's Hobart class is replacing the much smaller OHP class they have, and Europe's FREMM class are replacing much smaller frigate precedecssors of their own, and I think he's suggesting there is a trend for successor classes of warships of a given role to be higher in displacement to their predecessor classes.

Of course, I don't think that logic can be applied consistently, afterall the USN isn't replacing Ticos with a bigger class of warship, and the Zumwalt class was greatly truncated and not a replacement for Burkes as they were meant to be.

Of course this logic can't be applied consistently, and that's my entire point in saying that the trend of larger sizes of destroyers recently doesn't at all mean switching from 7.5kt 052D to 12kt 055 is in any way comparable to countries switching from 6kt to 7kt destroyers. He would not be able to find even ONE example of any navy making a switch of this absolute magnitude.

As for the 055's future orbat proportion, what you suggest is possible, but I think lethe's suggestion of 055's eventually replacing 052Ds in production and role entirely is not that fantastical either.

Lethe has brought up the possibility of replacing 052Ds in production with 055s in the past, and before it revolved around the idea of the Navy eventually shifting from a three tier blue water navy of 12k ton DDG, 7k ton DDG, and 4k ton FFG, to eventually one of only 12k ton DDG and 6k ton "FFG" where the FFGs make up the something like 2/3 of the surface combatant number and the 12k ton DDG makes up 1/3.
Such a change would have to be far into the future, like which only occurs starting 2030 or something. But I think such a fleet structure is quite reasonable, and compared to the USN's current force structure which has an overwhelming number of 9k-10k ton Ticos and Burkes with only very few smaller frigate sized blue water capable vessels.

Personally I think an order of battle of 24 12k ton 055s, 24 7k ton 052C/Ds, and ~50 4k ton 054A/Bs to be achieved by the late 2020s is plausible and reasonable, whereby the 052C/Ds and 054A/Bs make up the bulk of the workhorse fleet while the 055s act in the traditional cruiser role.

Like I said, if the 055's displacement is not 12kt as is currently rumored, there is a possibility in my mind that the 055 could be the new baseline destroyer for the PLAN. There are practical/functional reasons destroyers have been similarly-sized for the last several decades (~6-10kt). And for every destroyer you can name outside of this range I can name for you 5-10 that fall within this range. In any case, AFAIK there are only 2 new build destroyers that actually fall outside this range: the KDX-III and the Zumwalt. The KDX-III is a destroyer in name only with weaponry greater than that of the Tico cruisers and with similar functions in the fleet (air warfare command), and the Zumwalt is unfortunately a cruiser-sized ship with the combat armament of a destroyer (which is probably why the USN calls it a "destroyer" in the first place).

 

[Iron Man]

The "USN exception" to 21st century warships being significantly larger than their predecessors is the elephant in the room really. And the simple truth, for those not in chronic denial, is that USN has made a dog's breakfast of its procurement plans over the last two decades, most relevantly with respect to the failed Zumwalt class and its last minute substitution with AB3. Anyone relying on USN to provide an indication of what a modern combatant should look like is therefore going to be sorely mislead.

Unfortunately, there seem to be some posters here who are simply unable to conceive of a world in which USN does not set the standard. If 055 is larger than AB3, this must be because it will be a limited run "special edition" warship, rather than the simple truth which is that AB3 is a last-minute "Plan B" solution that is compromised from the outset, the final evolution of a thirty year design that is already acknowledged to be too small. The simple truth is that 055, as the first clean-sheet large surface combatant of the 21st century (to not be strangled at birth), is the new standard for such vessels.

I'm not sure who you are referring to with the "some posters here" statement. Care to name names and who said what when, WITH QUOTES?

And I'm sorry, your personal opinion on an issue does not automatically translate into the "simple truth", as if your opinion is somehow the same as saying that the sun rises and sets every day. Yes, the Flight III ABs are a last minute Plan B to the exorbitantly expensive and cost-inefficient Zumwalt, but what in blazes does this have anything to do with the topic at hand? Are you claiming that "some posters" believe Flight III ABs set some kind of international "standard" for modern destroyer size and capability? The FREMM at 6,700t, Hobart at 7,000t, Project 15B at 7,400t, Type 052D at 7,500t, AB Flight III at 9,800t, and Atago at 10,000t. The recently concluded Horizon at 7,100t and Type 45 at 8,500t. These ships set the "standard" for modern destroyer size and capability, not your dream of a 12,000t mass production "destroyer" that has yet to even materialize.

Of course, when a significantly larger warship replaces AB3 in production for USN around 2030, it will then be "obvious" to such commentators that such is the new and eminently reasonable standard for large surface combatants going forward. The rest of us will simply roll our eyes.

First of all, you are just speculating when you say that a "significantly larger warship" will replace the AB Flight III, so I am already rolling my eyes even right now. Second, even if it does turn out to be larger it is certainly going to be a Tico replacement given that the USN will have several dozen brand new AB Flight IIIs in the fleet with possibly still more in production, so a larger sized cruiser compared to a smaller sized Flight III destroyer would certainly not be blowing up anyone's skirts. So let's all just get our eye-rolling over with because I'm getting slightly nauseated from the vision changes.

 

[Jeff Head]

I disagree with your analysis on the navies of Japan/Russia/UK/France/India.

Japan currently has 6 AEGIS destroyers and is adding 2 in the 2015-2020 plan. That's barely enough to keep the industrial base going.

The biggest surface warship that the Russian navy has commissioned in the past 15 years is a frigate.

The UK only has 6 air defence destroyers, the French have 2. In terms of ongoing construction overall, barely anything is happening. And yes, if Europe was united with a single navy, it would be a different story in terms of a single naval fleet with a viable industrial base. But that is not going to happen.

Then we've got India which really struggles to do naval shipbuilding correctly.

So please tell me I'm wrong when I say that nobody else compares to China and the USA in terms of naval shipbuilding.

It is true that on a single nation basis, that the US and China far outstrip everyone else.

However, you have to look at things a bit differently.

For example, in the Western Pacific, group Japan, South Korea and Australia together. Then you have currently 11 AEGIS vessels in the water, with another five building. Those three countries will ultimately field 17 AEGIS vessels of 7-10,000 tons. Not as many as China will ultimately have, but clearly a huge compliment to what the US will bring forward.

Europe has to have the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands grouped together. When you do that, you get a similar picture. Particularly when you add the FREMM FFgs in. but even without them, the large AEGIS and AEGIS-like vessels number over twenty vessels.

...and the thing is, all of these countries regularly exercise with the US and US SAGs and US Carrier and Amphibious groups. They do it so much each year that they can fit seamlessly into any US operation if they feel called upon to do so.

This is what China has to face...not just one of these nations at a time, but the fact that all of them are closely allied with the US...and when you add all of those nation I just mentioned together with the US percentage, then the numbers becoming very telling.

This does not mean China's position is hopeless. China simply has to avoid doing something that pushes all of the nations together against it. If it can thread that needle, then its forces will represent a signifcant and overpowering advantage for any smaller confrontations that do involve the nations piece meal.

And they are clearly well positioned to do that. Their naval force will be significantly larger than any of those nations outside the US...but not be able to compete with them all together...whihc is what the US exels at developing and has done so since the 1950s. These nations have worked with US vessels and US policies and operational parameters for decades to the point where in a confrontation, if they are grouped together, it would be like fighting one force instead of six or seven different ones.

 

[antiterror13]

deleted

 

[AndrewS]

It is true that on a single nation basis, that the US and China far outstrip everyone else.

However, you have to look at things a bit differently.

For example, in the Western Pacific, group Japan, South Korea and Australia together. Then you have currently 11 AEGIS vessels in the water, with another five building. Those three countries will ultimately field 17 AEGIS vessels of 7-10,000 tons. Not as many as China will ultimately have, but clearly a huge compliment to what the US will bring forward.

Europe has to have the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands grouped together. When you do that, you get a similar picture. Particularly when you add the FREMM FFgs in. but even without them, the large AEGIS and AEGIS-like vessels number over twenty vessels.

...and the thing is, all of these countries regularly exercise with the US and US SAGs and US Carrier and Amphibious groups. They do it so much each year that they can fit seamlessly into any US operation if they feel called upon to do so.

This is what China has to face...not just one of these nations at a time, but the fact that all of them are closely allied with the US...and when you add all of those nation I just mentioned together with the US percentage, then the numbers becoming very telling.

This does not mean China's position is hopeless. China simply has to avoid doing something that pushes all of the nations together against it. If it can thread that needle, then its forces will represent a signifcant and overpowering advantage for any smaller confrontations that do involve the nations piece meal.

And they are clearly well positioned to do that. Their naval force will be significantly larger than any of those nations outside the US...but not be able to compete with them all together...whihc is what the US exels at developing and has done so since the 1950s. These nations have worked with US vessels and US policies and operational parameters for decades to the point where in a confrontation, if they are grouped together, it would be like fighting one force instead of six or seven different ones.

Yes, the combined fleets elsewhere are significant, but look at how inefficient it is to build all those single fleets with separate industrial bases and the struggle to feed that industrial base with enough orders to keep it alive.

And the only thing that would push everyone else in the world to gang up on China is naked military expansion like Imperial Japan. But that is simply not going to happen because:

1. China's national myth is as a victim of nasty colonial imperialist powers like Imperial Japan or the British Empire. So it would be a huge stretch to become a rampaging conqueror.
2. China has clearly outlined it's vision for Asia, which is for economic leadership, interdependence and win-win cooperation. And most of the world has willingly signed up to this vision, so what need is there for military conquest?

But let's say that China and the US do somehow end up in conflict.

If South Korea supports the US and declares war on China, that would be an invitation for North Korea to start a war with South Korea. That is because Fatty Kim knows that China cannot let North Korea lose. So the Chinese Army will come streaming over the border to fight SK/US forces in a land war where the odds are that China will win. And in any case, if China was facing defeat in a naval-air war, then what is stopping them from declaring war against South Korea and forcing the USA into yet another bloody land war on the Korean Peninsula?

And because Australia knows this, they would be faced with the nightmare scenario below.

It was like a meeting with an Old Testament prophet. Towering and rock-hewn, Malcolm Fraser was grave, telling me – Australia's new foreign minister – that America was capable of being drawn into a land war with China.

"Going to war with China and losing it. And then withdrawing from Asia."

Read more

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And Japan is aware of this as well, and would be faced with the prospect of a hostile Chinese navy and air force being based in Busan, a mere 200km from the Japanese Home Islands. That will certainly temper any desire to declare war on China and make it an implacable enemy.

It's a dirty little secret that Asian policymakers rarely utter in public because of how uncomfortable the conclusions are. Plus US policymakers are in denial as well, because all the talk is about how the US would win a naval-air war, when they would also have to win a land war against China on the Korean peninsula.

And if SK, JP and Aus think this way, what are the chances of Europe declaring war on China?

They would probably sit out a US-China war because the stakes are just not high enough and they don't want to risk being on the losing side.

The value of US alliances in a war with China is over-stated.

But thankfully, we will probably never see these scenarios tested because China has clearly chosen economic development and leadership.

 

[Lethe]

Yes, the Flight III ABs are a last minute Plan B to the exorbitantly expensive and cost-inefficient Zumwalt, but what in blazes does this have anything to do with the topic at hand? Are you claiming that "some posters" believe Flight III ABs set some kind of international "standard" for modern destroyer size and capability?

The Arleigh Burke class set the standard for large surface combatants in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. But going forward that is no longer the case. European nations introduced modestly more refined medium-sized warships in ~2010, and with 055 China is translating that standard to the big leagues, while USN is muddling through with a design that goes back 30 years.

You evidently believe that AB3 sets the upper bound for a mass produced destroyer type. Anything larger than that is apparently a "cruiser" type that cannot possibly serve as China's standard large surface combatant going forward.

First of all, you are just speculating when you say that a "significantly larger warship" will replace the AB Flight III, so I am already rolling my eyes even right now.

Yeah, ok. So the fact that DD(X) was meant to be larger than it is, that there was meant to be a 15-25,000ton CG(X) program as well, and that fact that AB3A is acknowledged to be bursting at the seams and unable to meet future requirements such that USN is planning a replacement before the first ship has even hit the water is somehow not evidence enough of USN's future directions?

Second, even if it does turn out to be larger it is certainly going to be a Tico replacement given that the USN will have several dozen brand new AB Flight IIIs in the fleet with possibly still more in production, so a larger sized cruiser compared to a smaller sized Flight III destroyer would certainly not be blowing up anyone's skirts.

There are a lot more Burkes retiring between now and 2040 than there are Ticos. In fat, there are almost as many Burkes retiring between now and 2030 as there are Ticos. That's why it's called the "Future Surface Combatant" program, not the "Ticonderoga replacement program".

 

[AndrewS]

@Bltizo

I agree with Iron Man on the usage of carriers within the First Island Chain.

For the money spent on a carrier+escorts+navalised fighters, you can buy a lot more in terms of land-based fighters and aerial tankers to patrol within the First Island Chain.

The carriers are better employed further away where there aren't any Chinese airfields available.

Plus a hardened airbase is way more survivable than a carrier is within the first island chain.

@Iron Man

Modern destroyers are currently the size they are because of the military technologies available plus similar operational requirements.

However, railguns+lasers+IEPS+drones are changing the technology, and therefore make the optimum ship size bigger because electricity, propulson and hull-volume is inexpensive.

This was part of the reason why the Zumwalt-class was designed for 14000 tons. It was supposed to represent the new baseline, but the key flaw is that it was designed to project power on land in a permissive environment, when the US Navy actually needs a ship for high-intensity sea control against a peer opponent and also the proliferation of low-cost AA/AD. That's simply a failure of the US Navy to project what the world would look like in 15 years time. And it's relevant to why we're discussing what the Chinese navy will look like in 2030.

So for these reasons, I see the Chinese navy continuing with the larger Type-55 hull as the new baseline rather than the Type-52D. I expect the first blocks will simply be an evolutionary cruiser-size version of the Type-52D.

But in subsequent blocks, I expect IEPS. Then after the IEPS is proven, they'll start adding railguns+lasers when ready. Drones can be added and upgraded at any time, as long as there is space to expand within that larger hull.

 

[Janiz]

That's simply a failure of the US Navy to project what the world would look like in 15 years time.

A warship being half year in commission being a failure... Go and tell them that so that they can save billions and cancel out Lyndon B. Johnson because they're going to waste more money on this 'failure'!

 

[latenlazy]

@Bltizo

I agree with Iron Man on the usage of carriers within the First Island Chain.

For the money spent on a carrier+escorts+navalised fighters, you can buy a lot more in terms of land-based fighters and aerial tankers to patrol within the First Island Chain.

The carriers are better employed further away where there aren't any Chinese airfields available.

Plus a hardened airbase is way more survivable than a carrier is within the first island chain.

You can buy more land based fighters and aerial tankers for the same money, but that doesn't mean equal or more capability. Contesting the first island chain is meaningless if you can't actually take islands into your own control.

The area covered by the first island chain is vast, and its distance from Chinese shores is great. China isn't exactly buried in larger airfields that can act as main operation centers outside its immediate territory.